Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man, wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Or sometimes a little bit later if the diarist is me. I have a terrible habit of cutting things close.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Pictures of the week from the BBC (Africa), the BBC (worldwide), The Atlantic,
As the world’s focus is on Argentina for other reasons, there is news there as everywhere. We begin with an editorial from the Pittsburgh Post -Gazette:
The Argentinean government should listen to the family members of the 44 crew members who died on a submarine last year.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It took Argentina a year to find a submarine that disappeared with 44 crew members aboard, and now the government has balked at raising it so that remains can be returned to still-grieving family members.
The judge overseeing the investigation into the San Juan’s tragic end said she’ll order the sub lifted from the Atlantic floor only if that would help to answer questions about what happened to it.
That isn’t right. The 43 men and one woman on the San Juan gave their lives for their country, and their remains should be returned to loved ones if that’s what the families choose. Experts say a salvage operation is feasible, and the decision shouldn’t turn on cost even though Argentina is struggling financially.
And from The Economic Times:
BUENOS AIRES: Yoga is India's gift to the world for health, and peace, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday as he highlighted the benefits of the ancient Indian practice for overall wellbeing.
Addressing participants at a yoga event here, he said the practice connects everyone to happiness.
And from Vice News:
China built a $50 million space base in Argentina to reach the dark side of the moon, but it's casting a shadow on its neighbors
LAS LAJAS, Neuquen Province, Argentina — In the middle of the Patagonian desert, more than 40 miles from the nearest town, sits a $50 million space base the Chinese say will be used to send a rocket to the dark side of the moon.
On the base, an enormous white satellite slowly rotates next to the Chinese scientists' living quarters, all surrounded by fencing topped with barbed wire. The casual observer can’t get closer than the gates, about a hundred yards away from the structure, without an invitation.
It's a space base, but it also serves China’s more earth-bound ambitions, as well, expanding its reach into a region that other world powers — including the United States — have long taken for granted.
More news below the fold…
From the New York Post:
Flight MH370 victims’ families have made a “massive breakthrough” in the search for the missing aircraft, unveiling five new pieces of debris found washed up on a beach.
Speaking at a news conference Friday, they pleaded for more cash to allow search efforts to continue.
New debris was held up by Jacquita Gonzales, the wife of MH370 crewman Patrick Gomes, as other relatives begged government officials not to stop looking.
Speaking of planes, here is an article from the Independent (UK):
Muhammad Abulkasem, 19, is being held in a jail cell without legal representation, his family says
Peter Stubley
British teenager has been arrested in Egypt on suspicion of spying after he took a photo out of a plane window, according to his family.
Muhammad Abulkasem, 19, has been in jail since he was detained when he arrived at the airport in Alexandria on a flight from Libya on 21 November.
The A-level student from Cheetham Hill in Manchester was questioned after authorities found a photograph of a military helicopter on his phone.
One more plane story, this from the BBC:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel missed the opening of the G20 summit in Argentina after her plane was forced to land shortly after leaving Berlin.
The plane carrying Mrs Merkel's team turned back while flying over the Netherlands late on Thursday, because of a communications failure.
The Airbus made a safe but unscheduled landing in Cologne.
From Reuters:
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar youth activist and television host Thinzar Shun Lei Yi would once have called herself one of Aung San Suu Kyi’s greatest fans. Now, she is one of her most vocal critics.
From The New York Times:
Just months before undertaking the most forbidding journey in his life as a young missionary to a remote Indian Ocean island, John Allen Chau was blindfolded and dropped off on a dirt road in a remote part of Kansas.
After a long walk, he found a mock village in the woods inhabited by missionaries dressed in odd thrift-store clothes, pretending not to understand a word he said. His role was to preach the gospel. The others were supposed to be physically aggressive. Some came at him with fake spears, speaking gibberish.
And something rather fun, from The Sun:
HIDDEN FIGURES
Mysterious sites that you can't actually view litter Google's mapping service
By Sean Keach, Digital Technology and Science Editor
GOOGLE Maps has a bold mission to document every corner of Earth – but some places are so secret they're not allowed to be snapped.
From military bases, mysterious islands and even a random house in Stockton-on-Tees, there's no shortage of secret spots Google Maps won't show you.
Finally, some news from the art world. We begin with this from Miami’s CBS Local:
It is the U.S. premiere of the exhibit and it is the largest ever exhibition of Banksy’s works displaying 80 original works by the intriguing, elusive, and most talked about street artist in modernhistory.
The Bristol born artist’s former agent and personal photographer of 12 years, Steve Lazarides, curated it.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
A Revolution-era oil painting will join other 18th-century American works at the St. Louis Art Museum, part of a controversial sale by a Massachusetts museum.
Benjamin West’s 1775 painting was sold to help pay for repairs at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield after months of criticism and even a lawsuit that tried to stop the sale.
Sold to St. Louis for $350,000, the 6-foot-wide “Daniel Interpreting to Belshazzar the Handwriting on the Wall” is a “terrific acquisition,” museum curator Brent Benjamin said Thursday.
Other art news from the BBC:
It's Christmas slime - but there's no need to be afraid of Tate Britain's sluggish festive commission.
After all, nothing says Yuletide like two giant illuminated leopard slugs outside a major London gallery.
Measuring more than 10m (33ft), the mighty molluscs will remain in situ until 25 February.
Monster Chetwynd's gastropod-inspired artwork also includes swathes of blue and white LED slug trails across the facade of the building.
From the Times Union:
Not quite time for fat lady to sing
Two recent books on opera are welcome departures from the more-common encyclopedic guides and both offer a generally optimistic attitude toward an art form that seems to always be in a state of rebirth. That being said, "Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America" is one sad story. Two-thirds of the way through its 265 pages, I scribbled in the margin "Chilling, dread, tragedy, yuck."
The author is Heidi Waleson, opera critic for the Wall Street Journal for the last 25 years. She presents far more than a postmortem of the company's 2013 closure. The book is a thorough and quick-moving history of the troupe. At the conclusion of the narrative, the book expands into a survey of positive new trends in the field among companies that can be considered the heirs of City Opera's innovations and ambitions.
From the BBC:
As British politicians debate the country's future relationship with the EU, another vital question about the UK's role in Europe is being addressed - how it chooses a Eurovision entrant.
The BBC has announced it will overhaul the selection process for next year.
Three songs will each be performed in two different styles by two different artists, with one act from each pair going through to a final public vote.